Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Total applications are up because more competitive students applied to more schools this year. Instead of 5-7 applications, they filed 8-12, or more. Also, applications are up at selective schools and down everywhere else because students used test optional policies to climb the food chain. What the better students didn’t realize is that schools would use test optional to admit more diverse students, so slots that above-average white kids with no test score hoped would be theirs instead went to URMs with no score. Now, those above-average white kids with no score are scrambling to find a seat before the admissions music stops. To get an admit, they may now have to apply to much less selective schools, because that is where the seats remain.
There's no data to support this. It may turn out to be true, but I suspect full pay and OOS kids at public schools will get the advantage.
I think this is important to note. The data for this year is far from available - we need to wait and see, to the extent that colleges actually release this data.
When we look beyond the top 10, when you get toward top 30-50, you see schools where half, or more than half, of the applicants and/or admitted students did not submit scores in the early round. Examples Villanova and BC. (One blog also claims that 46% of apps to WashU did not have scores, though one might wonder how they will fare at a school that explicitly values them.) On the one hand, that large fraction is a little shocking, but on the other, perhaps the applicants were simply following the prevailing wisdom not to submit scores if they were below the college's average, which by definition led to roughly half not submitting, plenty of whom would have been unhooked.
Among top 10, while few have released figures, something like a third of apps to Penn were without scores vs a quarter of admits. This is very different from a normal test-optional year where only 15% applied without scores to U Chicago.
However, it's also true that colleges are hoping to see an increase in their URM population due to test optional policies, and if that happens, that is data they are likely to be more vocal about, to the extent they release any information this spring.
There are lots of subsets of applicants who benefit, or not, from test optional policies. It will be interesting to see the data, though colleges may be cagey about it.
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